


Parenthood

by buttered_onions



Series: The Sims!Merlin [4]
Category: Merlin (TV), The Sims (Video Games)
Genre: AU, Babies, Humor, M/M, Mpreg, Still not sorry, The Sims 2, so much crack, toddlers are AWFUL
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2016-02-01
Packaged: 2018-05-17 14:41:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5874529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buttered_onions/pseuds/buttered_onions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Having the baby was the easy part.</p><p>Or, the Sims!Merlin AU continues with its expected type of crack: one kid, going on two, and the total and complete failure to meet any needs except survival. Barely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Parenthood

**Author's Note:**

> I prevail!
> 
> This is the last I have written in The Sims 2. When I get myself sorted out...Sims 3??
> 
> This directly follows [Baby Incoming: Prepare With Vigilance](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5800015) by a period of misery. Who decided to let babies grow up in three days? Way too much time. Way too many diapers.
> 
> No offense is meant to real and actual parents. You guys make the world go round.
> 
> No excuses, still, just love. :)

Having the baby, it turned out, was the easy part. What came after was so terrible that Arthur could practically forget the entire days where he alternated between passing out in bed, waking up exhausted to inhale some food, barely making it to the bed, only to have to get up to use the toilet, then burning his third dinner because he was too exhausted to cook, and falling asleep on the floor after somehow managing to swallow his meal and a bag of cookies (he was eating for two, after all). Merlin took pity on him and actually did the housework properly for once, cooking for him and cleaning the toilet after Arthur vomited in it in his morning-sickness-at-4-pm bout. It was touching, and for god’s sake, why couldn’t he be like that _now_?

Empty, green, octagonal bottles littered the floor. More than one of them was spewing green ooze onto the otherwise pristine linoleum. The stench was gagging and Arthur felt dirty just standing among them. “Mer _lin_. The environment is terrible. Do something about it!”

“It’s not like you can’t bend over anymore and pick some of them up yourself,” Merlin commented blithely. “Besides, the trash is full and it’s your turn to take it out. Additionally, I’m starving, move.”

Arthur stood in front of the refrigerator, feeding Ygraine a bottle. He rocked her back and forth as she cooed and slurped violently. Were all babies this loud? “I’m _busy.”_

“And I’m starving.” Merlin frowned. “You’re blocking the fridge.”

“I said I’m _busy!”_

“I’m starving!”

“It’s not like I can do this anywhere else!”

Merlin threw his hands up in the air, waving an arm over his head in frustrated protest. “I can’t prepare dinner without getting it out of the fridge! What do you expect me to do?”

“Maybe you could take out the trash while you wait,” Arthur quipped. In his arms Ygraine burped. The bottle fell harmlessly to the floor, and there was a blissful second of quiet where Arthur stood rocking his daughter as if there wasn’t a thing to do but hold her, and Merlin stood gazing at the two of them as if they were the only people in the world and there wasn’t a thing to do in the world but enjoy each other’s company.

A foul stench filled the air. Ygraine spoiled the second by starting to cry.

Arthur bit back a sigh. Merlin held out his arms. “Just give her to me and you can make dinner.”

Arthur consented. He could cook macaroni and cheese very well now, and put two steaming bowls on the little table within moments. Merlin didn’t show up when Arthur called him to dinner, so Arthur went looking for him. He found Merlin in their room, laying Ygraine in her crib and tenderly tucking her in. 

Arthur had never thought he’d trust anyone with his children, ever, but somehow Merlin had, again, made all the difference in the world. Watching Merlin with their daughter as he tenderly tucked her into her little pink and white crib, Arthur couldn’t imagine a better person to entrust his children with.

“I didn’t know we had a changing table,” he commented idly.

Merlin straightened and smiled at him, the same smile he’d had the morning Arthur woke up pregnant with their second child, more than a little pleased and—perhaps—a little guilty. Some day Arthur would find out what made Merlin smile that way, but for now, he was content. “Got it this morning while you were sleeping.”

“I was not sleeping this morning,” Arthur protested, even if he had been. It seemed like all he did these days was sleep and eat, even though the baby had been in their lives for three whole days. Would life ever return to normal?

Dinner with Merlin at least had some semblance of normalcy. Plus, Merlin did the dishes, and afterwards he and Arthur picked up all the dirty bottles in the house, took out the trash, and recycled the newspapers that were beginning to gather up on the lawn. When had he ever had time to read a newspaper?

Life had sorted itself into ‘before the baby’ and ‘after the baby’. For example, before the baby they had been able to have a night of relatively uninterrupted sleep. After the baby, that was no longer possible, and tonight of all nights Arthur and Merlin seemed to be taking turns standing in front of her crib with nothing else to do but the sense that she was about to need them there for something.

Five minutes after the fourth time Arthur grumbled to Merlin that it was his turn to get up, he heard a wonderful, full-throated giggle of glee from the crib and sat up in time to see Merlin tossing their child into the air, where she spun in a sphere of sparkly, shiny confetti lights and landed in his arms not their little bald baby but a small girl with a positively thick layer of blond hair on her head and tickling her chin. It was one of the ugliest haircuts Arthur had ever seen but it didn’t matter; Merlin was holding their little girl, and she had _hair_. And pink footie pajamas.

Merlin set her down on the floor and turned to come back to bed. He met Arthur’s eyes.

“Guess we’ll be needing that high chair now?”


End file.
